The Dark Romantics of Literature
The Dark Romantics were the forefathers to the modern horror, thriller, and mystery stories. Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne added drastically different perspectives from those of the Transcendentalists.
Their views of human existence and strong use of symbolism made them stand apart from Emerson and Thoreau. They examined the psychological effects of guilt and sin, the conflict between good and evil, and people plagued with madness. They agreed that human nature is not necessarily good.
The Dark Romantics believed that the Transcendentalists ignored the darker side of humanity, so they sought to show their readers what was otherwise ignored or hidden. They did this through dark tales of obsession, revenge, shame, and madness. Their views and styles helped shape American literature.
The master of the psychological thriller was Edgar Allen Poe. He also wrote mysteries like “The Purloined Letter”. He filled his stories with grotesque details like people buried alive, decaying mansions, strange mental illnesses, and a raven that torments a madman. He wrote about the darkness of the human mind and characters who were plagued with madness and dementia. In “The Raven”, Poe writes of a grief-stricken man who has seemed to have lost touch with reality.
Gothic details like the rapping on the door and the raven’s eerie presence set a mood of fear. His purpose behind his morbid tales was to take the reader beyond the normal, everyday, rational world and into the dark recesses of the human mind.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was ashamed by the actions of his Puritan ancestors. He wrote of the guilt, shame, and hypocrisy. His stories cast light on those elements that accompany the Puritan lifestyle. The Scarlet Letter is about that shame and hypocrisy in Puritan life. The main character, Hester, is forced to wear an “A” on her clothing for her sin of adultery. Instead of seeing it as a symbol of her shame, she sees it as a symbol of the rest of the town’s shame and hypocrisy.
It becomes a symbol of pride and strength for her. Hawthorne also often wrote about secret sin. In “The Minister’s Black Veil”, He showed how we all have secret sin and should not judge others for theirs. He saw a blackness to human nature and tried to record it in his works.
Obsession, revenge, and the dark side to human existence were explored in Herman Melville’s works. He saw the dark side to humanity in things like obsession and revenge. His most famous novel, Moby-Dick, was about a captain of a whaling boat, and his obsession with killing the white-headed whale who handicapped him. The captain wants revenge on the whale, Moby-Dick, while his a crew member, Starbuck, thinks he’s insane for wanting revenge on a creature that acts on instinct.
Starbuck believes an animal acts on instinct, not malice, and sees the insanity in the captain. Melville uses the whale as the central symbol that expresses whether existence is harmless, indifferent, or evil. His purpose behind his stories was to seek the ultimate truth of human existence.
The Dark Romantics paved the way for the great horror and mystery stories of today. Without them, there would be no Stephen King books or horror flicks like Hannibal. The Dark Romantics are all similar because of their views of human existence.
They all saw and examined different aspects of the darker side of human nature. Edgar Allen Poe explored dementia, Herman Melville wrote of obsession, and Nathaniel Hawthorne examined guilt in Puritan life. They felt the Transcendentalists ignored the darker elements of existence and chose a more optimistic view.
The Dark Romantics sought to show the darker side that was ignored through their stories that still intrigue and abhor readers today. Their works have left an imprint on American literature and set themselves apart from all of the other writers of their time.
